


Ill Met by Moonlight

by PTlikesTea



Category: Brave (2012), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, Jack Frost/Merida - Freeform, Jarida - Freeform, Theatre nerdiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTlikesTea/pseuds/PTlikesTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From awful aus:</p>
<p>Jack's little sister claims Peter Pan has been visiting her at night. Jack is not happy about this. </p>
<p>Shakespeare is involved somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ill Met by Moonlight

**Ill Met by Moonlight**

A prompt from Awful Aus for Jarida week.

…..

The circumstances that had Jack sitting with Emma watching a Shakespeare play and actually laughing at it were a series of events so contrived they could have been written by the bard himself. It wouldn’t have come to pass at all if their mother’s workplace hadn’t employed a new line manager who insisted on messing with everyone’s shifts, meaning Jack was putting Emma to bed most weeknights.

It was a humid night, and Jack had made to shut the window when Emma asked him not to.

“If you close it, Peter Pan won’t be able to visit me,” she told him sternly.

He chuckled, and swung it open again.

“Peter Pan, huh? Does he stop by often?” Imagination was a wonderful thing.

“Yep. Every night. He left this here last night and I want to give it back.”

Emma held up a twisted copper bracelet, and Jack’s laughter died. The bracelet looked expensive, nothing like Emma’s drugstore penny jewellery, and nothing like their mom’s trinkets. It looked exactly like the kind of thing somebody would accidentally leave at a friend’s house.

Which meant someone had been in Emma’s room. At night.

“Um, Emma?” he began, not really knowing how to continue.

“Yes?” she replied innocently, smiling from under her My Little Pony sheets.

“What does Peter Pan look like?”

“Ummm….” she hummed, thinking. “ He’s sparkly. And kinda skinny. He wears tights. Oh, and he has feathers in his hair.”

“And, what does he do when he’s here?”

“He talks, mostly. I don’t understand most of it, but he’s funny. Sometimes he gives me a donut.”

Jack could practically feel his brown roots turning grey with stress. Not wanting to worry his little sister, he mumbled a mild ‘That’s nice…’ tucked her in and waited until she fell asleep. Once she’d dropped off he fetched a steel baseball bat and a kitchen chair and stood guard at the window.

It was past midnight and he was pretty much asleep in the chair when he heard a scraping noise from the windowsill. Peering through the dark, he saw a figure crawl through the open window, moaning quietly and glittering under the streetlights. Lurching forward, he caught the stranger by the wrist and pulled them to the ground then stood over them brandishing the baseball bat.

The stranger’s reaction was a confused, rather feminine sounding “Wha..?”

Not wanting to wake Emma but wanting to sound menacing at the same time (and now very confused by the feminine voice) Jack hissed his demands at the stranger.

“What are you doing in my sister’s room? Tell me quick or I’m calling the cops!”

“Your sister?” The stranger looked around, and groaned. “Oh bloody hell, not again!”

“Yes, again!” Jack growled. “What the hell?”

“Right, right, calm down,” the stranger struggled to (his?her?It?)’s feet and wobbled. “I thought this was my house.”

“Do you go through the window in your house?”

“Can’t fit me keys in me pantaloons, so yes.”

There was an accent there, sing-song and slurred.

“This is not your house,” Jack deadpanned.

“I’m drunk, I’m not stupid.”

With that said, the stranger slumped to the floor and only then did Jack pick up on the sharp honeyed scent of whiskey emanating from his unwanted guest. He sighed, and reached under its arms to pull it to its feet.

  1. Pull _her_ to _her_ feet. Because once he’d gotten his hands in place he realized that the stranger was wearing a chest binder that worked well, but not _that_ well. And he was copping an inadvertent feel.



“Issat your hand on my tits?” she groaned sleepily.

“Nope,” he answered breezily, dragging her out of the doorway. “I’m bringing you downstairs, you can’t be in my sister’s room.”

“Righto then,” she mumbled and started snoring before he’d even reached the stairs.

…..

He figured putting her in his bed would make her panic when she woke up, so putting her on the couch with a quilt was a smart idea. Not so smart was his idea to sit across from her in an armchair messing around on the internet, because they woke up the next morning at roughly the same time and he had a terrible crick in his neck.

“Shit, where am I?” were the first words out of her mouth, raspy because her mouth had been open all night.

“You’re at my house. It’s not your house,” Jack told her irritably, enjoying her little jump of surprise. “You broke into my sister’s bedroom. Apparently you’ve been doing that all week.”

She groaned and buried her head under the quilt. Jack noted that there was glitter all over said quilt, and probably all over the sofa too.

“I am so sorry,” she called, muffled under the covers. “Did I break anything? I’ll pay for it, I promise.”

“Just my nerves. My kid sister was telling me Peter Pan stopped by to talk nonsense and give her a donut, what was I supposed to think?”

“I’m not Peter Pan,” she said, sounding indignant, pulling the quilt back down. “I’m Puck! Shakespeare, like!”

Jack took it all in. He could see why Emma’s first thought was Peter Pan. The girl was wearing a green tunic covered in fake leaves and sparkley nude tights, and quail’s feathers in her short blonde hair (which, upon closer inspection, was in fact a wig.) She even had a pair of quite realistic-looking pointed ears, though one was barely hanging on by a thin string of latex.

“Well, Puck,” Jack drawled, now more amused than annoyed. “Why were you getting drunk and breaking unsuccessfully into your own house in shiny pantaloons?”

“It’s a long story,” she grumbled. “It requires coffee and lots of it.”

“Fine, I’ll make coffee. You can use the shower if you want, you’re getting glitter everywhere. I’ll lend you some clothes.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

…..

Out of the shower, now wearing his oversized Beemo t-shirt and board shorts, Jack was struck with the realization that _he’s having coffee with a cute girl and he didn’t even have to do anything!_ Suddenly giddy, he didn’t even mind that he’d been awake most of the night and was exhausted.

The girl slumped across from him, rubbing her temples to ease what was probably a serious headache (not just hungover but the sheer effort of keeping all of that curly hair under that tiny wig, a feat of engineering in and of itself) and he handed her a mug of black coffee.

“I’m Jack, by the way.”

“Merida,” she mumbled, sipping the coffee and grimacing.

“I’m dying to hear this story,” Jack drawled. “Should I make popcorn?”

She scowled at him, which is a bit rich considering she broke into his house and was wearing his clothes.

“It’s really stupid, I’ll just warn you now.”

“Consider me warned. Why don’t you start with why you thought my house was your house?”

“That’s not my fault,” she huffed, folding her arms. “Every bloody house here looks the same. I know I’m on the right street, but I’ve only lived here a couple of weeks.”

She actually had a point there. The houses on his street were all built by the same company, had the same shape, same windows and same doors, and it would be difficult to tell the difference by colour if you were wandering around in the dark. While drunk.

“So there’s this girl…” she continued.

_Crap. She’s gay. Just my luck._ He tried not to let the disappointment show on his face.

“Nicest girl you could meet. Give you the shirt off her back if she could. Too nice for her own good, but whatever. She helped me out when I moved here so I owe her a few favours.”

_Maybe not gay after all. Maybe just generous. Woot._

“So apparently she gets roped into this community theatre…thing and they’re doing _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , and the chap playing Oberon is this chap she’s got a thing for and she knows I was a Shakespeare scholar…”

_Cute and smart. Jackpot!_

“So naturally she asks for help with her lines, and I said I would, and then the lad who was supposed to play Puck threw a wobbly and got kicked off the set, so there’s no Puck, and the play opens in two weeks and it’s too late for auditions, life is ruined, true love not happening, et cetera,” she rambles.

“So you had to step in as Puck? That’s pretty sporting of you,” Jack said, with what was hopefully a charming grin.

Merida took a gulp of coffee. “She BEGGED me. Got down on her knees and everything. Didn’t even ask if I could act! Just ‘be in the play so I can get this beautiful man.’ How could I say no? Plus she promised there’d be free food.”

“Okay, I get the costume now and the breaking in, but not the drunk part. Surely you’d have to be sober for Shakespeare?”

“I’m getting to that part,” she groaned. “And I could recite the bard on a full bottle of absinthe, I assure you.”

He didn’t think it was possible to like her more than he did. He was wrong.

“It’s AWFUL,” she suddenly cried out with her hands skyward. “The guy playing Oberon is a massive tit! After the first rehearsal he sent me a picture of his knob! I’m pretty sure that’s how he got the part, because the director is suspiciously light in his moccasins!”

She produced her smartphone out of nowhere and before he could stop her, she was showing him the offending picture.

“Look at this! Why would anyone do this?”

“Ugh, gross, I don’t want to see it!”

“Neither did I!”

Trying to avert his gaze from the remarkably clear picture of another man’s equipment, he was amused to see that her message back to him was _What am I supposed to do with that?_

“It’s ridiculous! I only asked him if he had a copy of the rehearsal schedule,” she continued. “And the director’s one of these arthouse wannabes who insists we do every rehearsal in full costume. Do you know how long it takes to get that wig on?”

“I can take a guess,” he said sympathetically.

“Anna keeps forgetting her lines ‘cos she’s mooning over knob guy, her sister’s playing Helena but she’s too bloody stiff to make it look convincing, Titania’s away with the fairies and not in a useful way, none of the rude mechanicals know their lines, and to top it all off, the ass’s head looks nothing like an ass’s head!”

Tirade over, she slumped forward onto the table, hair spilling everywhere like upturned brandy.

“I couldn’t take it. Shakespeare’s butchered every night and I had to listen to it,” she whined, muffled under the hair. “It’s like watching someone slowly murder your childhood pets. I had to get drunk, it’s the only way to make any of this bearable.”

Now, one might have said she was being dramatic, but as chance would have it Jack was possibly the one person who knew how she felt, in a way. He’d sworn off Shakespeare long ago himself after he’d played Mercutio in a high school production while his girlfriend at the time got the much-coveted role of Juliet. No doubt swayed by the passion of the play she fell for the smug git playing Romeo and promptly dumped him, so when he rendered the ‘plague on both your houses’ part he wasn’t acting. Afterwards he declared that Shakespeare was forever tainted by the incident.

So, he had to empathise. He’d have gotten drunk too, if he’d been able.

“Chin up,” he said hopefully. “It’ll be over soon, right? And then you can dedicate your life to only seeing quality Shakespeare productions.”

“I have three days until opening night,” she groaned, sitting up. “It’s going to be a shitshow, a literal shitshow. A great big blemish on my reputation.”

A thought occurred to him. He’d channelled his raw anger into Mercutio so….

“Well, if it’s going to be so bad, why not play it the way you are now?” he suggested.

Her face screwed up in confusion (and she somehow managed to make it look adorable.)

“What, hungover? Angry? Despondent?”

“Yes! What’s Puck’s most famous line again?”

_“Lord, what fools these mortals be.”_

“Exactly! Everyone’s useless but you. Play up on that, maybe you can make it look like they’re all being awful on purpose.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then her face lit up with glee.

“That’s genius!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Oh, I could kiss you!”

_Yes. You could. Please do._

But she didn’t, she just thanked him profusely, promised to give him back his clothes after she’d washed them and dashed away in a cloud of trailing glitter.

The next day, he found three free tickets to the play pushed through his letterbox.

…..

He chose to bring Emma, of course, because as an eight-year-old girl she was an expert on whimsy and glittery crap and would love it. He also brought Hiccup because A) his mom was working and B) it was a great opportunity to gloat.

The actors were as amateurish as he’d expected, but the play wasn’t the clusterfuck Merida had been dreading. Anna’s mooning and general awkwardness gave her rendition of Hermia a gawky charm, her sister Elsa’s icy performance as Helena thawed out as she got more and more frazzled and was pretty funny to watch. Had Jack been in charge, he would have cast Elsa as Titania, she would have been far more regal in the role than Rapunzel, who was probably cast because she looked like a real-life fairy. But she was giggly and scattered with her donkey-headed beau and it worked.

However, Puck stole the show ruthlessly whenever she was onstage, especially when she was stuck acting alongside Hans’ Oberon. Hans played the fairy king with a superficial charm but you could see him subtly flexing if you were looking for it. Merida’s Puck treated his Oberon like the world’s most obnoxious office manager, rolling her eyes at his plans, trying to hurry him along with his monologues and yawning widely behind his back.

She never entered a scene normally, rolling in from stage left in a perfect cartwheel with an expression of pure boredom and hopping out into the audience when the mood took her. She watched the lovers quarrel from the audience, sitting on a spectator’s lap eating his popcorn. Towards the end of the play she was using Hans as a glorified prop, which delighted everyone watching. She climbed on his shoulders and sat there for one entire scene, forcing Hans to recite his lines with her foot under his chin and her elbows on his skull.

Emma loved it, and to his surprise Jack found himself enjoying it too, even when Merida wasn’t on stage. Perhaps Shakespeare had been untainted, the comedies at least.

…..

He would have snuck away afterwards and hoped to run into her on the street so they could dance around asking her out for a bit, but Emma insisted on talking to Peter Pan and dragged him with her.

“Hey spud, want a donut?” Merida said by way of greeting Emma, offering her a box.

“Yes please,” Emma beamed, taking three and handing one to Jack. “You were so funny, I really liked it!”

“Thanks,” Merida said, taking off her wig and starting the hair unravelling process before Emma’s fascinated eyes. “All that practice climbing your roof really paid off, so I should be thanking you.”

“That’s okay. But does that mean you won’t be coming by anymore?”

“Play’s over, Ems,” Jack said, mostly to get Merida’s attention back on him. “She doesn’t have a reason to break into our house now.”

_Can’t get more obvious than that. Your move, red!_

“Oh, I’m sure I could find another reason. There’s lots of stuff in your house I like,” she replied, grinning.

_Score! She likes stuff in my house! Some of that stuff could be me!_

Two days later, they had their first date. It ended with a bang, literally and figuratively.

Two weeks later, he was still finding glitter _everywhere._


End file.
